And suddenly the world was in color
by Silver345
Summary: They were all told when they were very small, that there is a wonderful thing called color. Color is bright, vibrant, like the taste of ice cream, or the smell of pine trees, or the noise of laughter. But its something you can see. Only when you find someone you truly love, will you see it. Lucaya Soulmate AU with a side plot of Riarkle
This is actually an edited repost because I reread it and thought I could do so much better. So here's the next (...fourth?) draft. I sincerely hope you enjoy!

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They were all told when they were very small, that there is a wonderful thing called color. Color is bright, vibrant, like the taste of ice cream, or the smell of pine trees, or the noise of laughter. But its something you can see. Only when you find someone you truly love, will you see it. It might not appear immediately, rather, gradually, with a single color suddenly invading your vision. When all the colors finally appear, oh how you'll know. It will be as if you've suddenly put on a pair of glasses that fill in the grays with colors of all kinds.

Little girls like Riley fantasized over what color their love would be. Her parents told her the names of all the colors and she dreamed of seeing a flash of orange because it just _sounded_ like such a happy color. So her parents, having seen color for themselves at a young age, supported her enthusiasm wholeheartedly. Cory and Topanga shared the same first color, which showed the strength of their bond and dressed their daughter in the happiest yellows and oranges and pinks so that when she saw her color, she would see it everywhere.. Cory saw red lipstick being smeared across a strange girl's forehead and Topanga saw a bright red baseball cap. So every night, Riley dreamed of seeing a bright color and having the person she saw it on see the same on her.

Little boys like Farkle didn't really mind the blacks and whites and grays he saw, but he was oh so curious. His father, who just wanted his son's little head to be filled with all the knowledge in the world, said that colors were a result of the refraction of white light. While Farkle was amazed that what he was seeing was the purest form of light there was, he wondered about color, what it meant exactly when he was told that plants couldn't absorb green light, and what it looked like when the ocean appeared blue because it reflected the sky. He thought the world was already a beautiful and fascinating place, but how much more could it be if it had color?

Little girls like Maya didn't believe in color. Not really anyway. When she asked her mother, the woman said she had seen yellow when she met her father, but only the one color. You would only see all the colors if it was true love. So she had only ever seen yellow in all her years of life. When her father had run away, Katy told her daughter that all the color had faded away. The little girl thought that life must be pretty dull if you had gotten a taste of color and had it snatched away from you. So she decided that she wouldn't ever fall in love. She was happy with the blacks and whites and grays that she had and she didn't need a tiny bit of hope if it was all going to fade back to gray.

Little boys like Lucas didn't quite understand the concept of color. His mother had told him that the first color she had seen was something called green that had been the color of his father's flannel shirt on that day. Green didn't sound so wonderful to him; it just looked as gray as all the other things in the world. His father said that his first color was the light blue that had been on the future Mrs. Friar's polka dot dress. He said it was the color of the sky. But Lucas looked up and saw a pale gray. So he didn't care too much, he didn't see the appeal.

As children grew older, they were taught lessons on how color worked and how to try and identify colors. They all listened with rapt attention because they didn't want to look bad when they got to high school where colors were beginning to appear as new feelings did. If they didn't understand colors, they would be mismatched.

Girls like Riley already knew her reds from her oranges from her yellows from her pinks, but she had to work hard to distinguish the darker colors from each other. They seemed similar but she wanted to be able to wear them too in case the person who would love her saw darker colors.

Boys like Farkle had already seen the color yellow. Even when he struggled with all the other colors, he could point out yellow without fail. He never told anyone why. Farkle just knew that even though he had always told Riley and Maya that he loved them both equally when they were children, he had seen the color on Riley's shirt first. When Riley wore yellow, it would brighten his day and make him feel fuzzy inside. And that color only spread until he saw everything yellow vividly.

Girls like Maya, knew all the colors somehow, but she purposely chose the wrong ones all the time to prove that color didn't matter to her. She didn't care that the buildings and signs around her in New York City were filled with countless colors, she couldn't see them so they didn't matter. She refused to use any finger paint colors other than the black and white and wore whatever combination of colors and styles she wanted to prove her defiance.

Boys like Lucas didn't really have to worry about color. When he had mentioned to his mother that he liked the sound of the word blue, she had gotten him an array of supposedly blue shirts, dark jeans and black shoes so that no matter what he chose, he would match. She threw in a few green shirts too because she had a small hope that the color he would see might be green like hers was. She said it brought out his eyes, but Lucas had no idea what that was supposed to mean and bringing out someones eyes didn't sound like a good thing. He didn't understand color and he didn't really care to. So when he looked out the window of the airplane and traded the bright blue expanse of the Texan sky for the gray polluted sky of New York, it meant nothing to him.

On the first day of seventh grade, Riley was flustered because she didn't know what to wear. With maturing thoughts and feelings and hopefully visions, she wanted the first color the person who loved her would see to be perfect. But Maya, being the great best friend she was, threw a random dress at her. She wouldn't allow the girl with perfect attendance to be late on her first day. Maya refused to choose anything special, just black and white so that no one would be able to see any colors on her if they somehow managed to get it into their head that they loved her. Then they rushed through New York to the subway so they would make it to school on time.

There was a cute boy on the subway and Riley landed in his lap by the prompting of Maya because the brunette had been a giggling mess about his looks. She talked to him shyly for awhile before a look of shock suddenly appeared on her face. When she walked back to Maya, she could only utter one little word.

"B-b-blue…" Maya widened her eyes because it was ridiculous and of course her friend would believe in love at first sight.

"Pumpkin, you couldn't have possibly seen blue on him already, thats not how love works." Riley shook her head to clear the thought and smiled, ridiculing herself for being so silly.

"You're right, I don't even know him. Its probably just wishful thinking."

But when he happened to be a new student in their seventh grade homeroom, Riley stared at him and then back at her friend. She knew that it might not have been bright, but Riley had definitely seen something. Maybe faintly, but something.

As they went through the year, some people would find colors. A very select few, because they were only in seventh grade, but it was happening nonetheless. Sometimes two students would stop suddenly in the locker filled hallways outside the classrooms and stare at each other in astonishment for a moment while everyone would exchange knowing looks when they rushed towards each other. Most would only faintly see one color in that relationship and it would slowly fade until the cycle repeated with the newest relationship of the week. Riley kept seeing more and more blue everyday and was becoming hopelessly enamored. Farkle and Maya suspected that Lucas might have seen something too because whenever Riley wore pink, he would stare at her for a heartbeat longer than usual. Maya didn't say anything because she didn't want Riley's dream to be crushed if she noted the possibility of a temporary color. Farkle didn't say anything even though he was hurting. Recently another color had appeared, meaning that he could be truly in love with Riley. He had read that sometimes people would see only bits and pieces of the color spectrum for their entire lives if they had unrequited love. Almost all the subjects that had been interviewed for that article seemed to have become bitter from the loneliness that resulted. He was terrified.

Lucas still didn't think much of colors, but when he began to see a gray turn slightly pinkish, he was confused and excited. He really liked Riley, but he wasn't sure he was in love. But as the pink brightened, so did his eyes and he spent much more time with her because color was addicting and she was so nice. So the two smiled at each other a lot while Maya waited alone in her black and white world and Farkle grew quiet when he saw yellow or red, especially on Riley, because it hurt.

And when Lucas' friend from Texas moved to New York, Farkle and a friend to discuss unrequited love with because Zay had known a girl named Vanessa with purple nails, but the girl had never seen any of the colors on his plaid shirts.

They graduated to high school and after dating for the first few years, Riley ran through the hallways to Maya in tears because Lucas' favorite blue shirt was fading. Maya blinked in confusion because she was pretty sure fading clothes was just from washing with the wrong kind of soap. Riley shook her head vigorously and explained.

"The shirt itself is fine, Maya. _I can hardly see the blue._ " And Maya's eyes widened as Riley wrapped her arms around the blonde's neck and sobbed. Her best friend was falling out of love.

Hanging out with the group with a new sense of interest, Maya noticed that Lucas' gaze no longer stayed on things that were supposedly pink anymore. Riley made an extra effort to wear his favorite shade to see if it would make anything better, but his eyes would never linger. Maya confronted him and demanded to know the truth. With a regretful sigh, he told her that the pink had been gone for a while. He had hoped pretending nothing had changed would make his vision of pink come back, but it hadn't. Maya revealed that Riley's color was fading as well, her heart dropping in her chest at the face he made. He swallowed tightly and nodded, leaving Maya by the lockers of the school as he walked away to find his girlfriend.

When they heard the news that Lucas and Riley had broken up, no one in the group was surprised. But the two remained friends because they knew that they still cared for each other, but their eyes told them that it wasn't in that way anymore. And life went back to normal.

It was at the debate tournament that a girl with dark hair and glasses walked up to Farkle and inquired about the red of his debate team jacket. He blinked at her rapidly and realized that the girl who had been his nemesis for years thought she might be in love with him. So he agreed to go out for smoothies with Isadora Smackle even though he looked across the room and still saw the bright shade of yellow on Riley's blouse. The brunette prompted him to ask Smackle to be his girlfriend a few months later and his smile never quite reached his eyes when he politely told her he wasn't going to because how could she not notice the longing looks and lingering glances? How could her eyes miss the bright array of colors he wore on a daily basis?

He started adding darker, less vibrant clothes to his closet soon after and only Riley was surprised. He would still intersperse the blacks and grays that he wore with a few bright turtlenecks and button ups every once in a while, but he had started to give up hope on color.

It was the anniversary of the day Lucas had first asked Riley out and so it was spent on the Matthew's couch, eating ice cream with Maya and watching old black and white movies because Riley didn't want to watch anything where she was missing something, especially not color at that time. Even though she was at peace with how it had ended, she still mourned the loss of the feeling of love and the sight of blue. When the doorbell rang, Maya got up to get the door because Riley was busy yelling at the TV, telling the man how oblivious he was.

Farkle stood at the door with another tub of cookie dough ice cream and a giant metal spoon with 'Don't judge me, I'm a _princess_ ' engraved along the handle, both of which he had just bought at the local convenience store. He gave Maya a sad smile and she let him in after returning the gesture. He announced his presence with a 'Hey, Riley' and the girl looked up at him and his purchases and smiled softly. He set them both down on the coffee table and pulled her into a comforting hug.

Late that night, after Farkle had gone home and Maya had passed out next to her, Riley spun the spoon in her fingers, and wondered if she had imagined the flash of _something_ she had seen when Farkle waved goodbye and closed the door behind him.

It was an average Thursday when Charlie Gardener, a boy in their English and History classes, came out of nowhere and asked Riley out for a movie date. When Riley agreed to go out with him, Zay invited himself over to Farkle's so that he and the genius could play Zombies Eat Your Brains 1 through 4 for hours to get out the frustration that came with having unrequited love. Maya didn't join him because she kept telling herself she didn't care about color. Her art teacher said that her black and white paintings were beautiful and that was all she needed. Riley didn't see any color on Charlie, but he saw a vivid teal on her and she was willing to give him a shot in case she saw the dark shades of green and red that he liked to wear some day. So Maya, Lucas, Farkle and Zay sat in Topanga's waiting for Riley to get back from her date while Farkle scowled, Lucas fidgeted, Zay leaned back in his seat and Maya sketched. She asked Lucas how he was doing and he shrugged.

"I'm actually surprisingly fine. Its Farkle over here who I'm worried about." She nodded in response, shooting a sad look at their friend who was still glaring holes through the wall. But suddenly the young genius spoke, looking at Lucas with a confused expression.

"Lucas, have you ever seen a color other than pink?" Lucas shook his head.

"Not that I know of." And they let it drop. And in his head, Lucas told himself that the sort of reddish tinge that Maya's lips held was just a little residual pink from his affection for Riley and ignored the fact that that color had gone long ago.

Riley and Charlie stopped seeing each other after a couple dates. Charlie was disappointed, but Riley refused to lead him on. Nonetheless, she found refuge in Farkle's embrace because she still felt a little sad that it hadn't worked out and Farkle never complained even though he was still certain that she would never see him differently. But one day, he walked up to her locker at school and when she turned to greet her friend, she gaped at him because she was staring at a bright orange turtleneck and she knew it without a doubt. His eyebrows raised high on his forehead, but when he asked what was wrong and all she could say was:

"O-o-orange!" And he froze for a moment before planting a kiss on her lips right then and there. Her eyes fluttering shut and she felt like she was seeing colors flash right behind her eyelids with the sensation. When the two parted and her eyes opened, they couldn't close again because the world was in full color and nothing had ever been so beautiful in her entire life. By the look of wonder on his face, she knew he saw the same thing. And they walked around with wide eyes, intertwined hands and giggles bubbling on their lips for the rest of the day while Maya simply laughed at them for being such goofballs. Lucas just glanced down at the brightening hue of the red logo on her shirt and in his mind he knew she felt like this because she had never seen color and it disappointed him because that meant she didn't feel anything for him. Zay just smirked at the two of them with a knowing look because he noticed Lucas' gaze lingering on Maya frequently.

One day it finally happened. She was in art class getting the paint for her final project and as she was about to grab for the black paint bottle, she saw something bright out of the corner of her eye. Turning, her eyes opened wide and her eyebrows lifted high in shock. _Green. Green on Lucas._ She could always tell whether his shirt was blue or green because she had colors figured out, but today she had no doubt. He was bent over his desk, aimlessly trailing a colored pencil (red) across the paper. Trying to compose herself, Maya grabbed a bottle of paint.

" _Green,_ Maya?" Riley interrupted before the blonde could glob the paint onto her paper plate palette. The girl froze and stared at the bright color that gleamed back at her mockingly.

"Oh, my bad, I meant to grab black. These colors all look the same to me, you know?" Her laugh sounded foreign and Riley raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment. She also let slide the fact that all the paints had large labels in bold that were hard to miss. But when she turned to look, she could see that the only person wearing green was Lucas and a small smile appeared on her face.

The two best friend told each other everything, but Maya never said anything about color to Riley.

Lucas began to notice the change in Maya. Every once in a while, she would get flustered when he talked to her and he noticed that her eyes always lingered table full of colored paints instead of going straight to the neutral tones. He asked Riley once about it once when the blonde had found some excuse to leave as soon as he got to the lunch table with his tray of food.

Her only response was, "Thats a nice green shirt, Lucas. It's a good color on you." before she scurried through the cafeteria doorway to find her friend. He was confused, but when he caught Zay's pointed gaze, he was hit with a wave of elation. _Green_.

Lucas began buying some of his own clothes, with the help of his mother. He immediately picked out a red flannel shirt because it reminded him of her and his mother smiled slightly but didn't say anything. When he asked if she could find him some green shirts, she nodded and never said a word. She knew.

He began to alternate colors to check her responses to them. He was fairly certain he was right. But she never said anything and he wasn't the kind of guy to pry.

Homecoming was fast approaching when Farkle and Riley started discussing colors. They wanted to match after all. They decided on a light blue at the lunch table one day and asked their friends what they were doing for the dance. Lucas said he was going without a date and Zay informed them that he had met a sweet girl who had him seeing purple all over again. Maya tried to tell them that she wasn't going, but Riley insisted that she was and told her they were going dress shopping that weekend. The brunette caught the not so subtle fact that Lucas couldn't look away from Maya's red lipstick.

When the homecoming dance came, Lucas walked into the decorated gym in a dress shirt, vest and a green tie his mom had 'just happened to pick up for him.' He saw plenty of red dresses but none of them were on the girl he was looking for. He glanced across to the doors where he saw Riley and Farkle walk in. Or more importantly, Maya. Maya in a red dress and red lipstick. He couldn't look away.

The four of them danced together for a while to the array of dance music and well known pop songs the DJ was playing while Zay was off somewhere getting punch for his date. A slow song came on and Riley and Farkle paired together, leaving Lucas with his hands on Maya's waist and Maya with her hands on Lucas' shoulders, the short blonde refusing to look him in the eye. Finally, Lucas built up enough courage to bend down and whisper in her ear.

"Red is a beautiful color on you." He felt her freeze under his hands and he looked down at her, the nervousness apparent in his eyes.

"I-I… when?" He merely shrugged his shoulders because he honestly didn't know.

"What's your favorite color, Maya?" He knew she would never answer if he asked her directly. She still stuttered a quick answer and tried to push him away.

"I-I've never seen any colors—"

"Don't lie to me. Please, Maya," He said, his voice pleading. She stared up at him for a moment but fixed his eyes firmly on his tie.

"I still don't have a favorite." He frowned at her. She glared back defiantly.

"How can I have a favorite if the only one I've ever seen is green?" she snapped. He blinked at her in shock. He hadn't expected her to tell him that easily. They had stopped dancing a while back and Farkle and Riley were watching them closely. But Lucas couldn't care less because he just crashed his lips into hers and he couldn't think of anything else except for the way she tasted like cherries and felt soft like cotton and smelled like vanilla. And it didn't matter what color she was wearing because his eyes were closed, but he knew it was red and that made him _sososo_ happy. When when they pulled away, he left his eyes closed because he was trying to etch the moment into his memory and savor the moment as he continued breathing in her scent.

"Lucas?" she mumbled quietly. He hummed in response.

"I think green is my favorite color." Her voice was hushed, as if in awe of something. He opened his eyes to look at her.

And suddenly the world was in color.


End file.
